📖 DOAJ Journal Metrics Scraper

🚀 Extract open access journal data from DOAJ in seconds. Filter by subject, language, country, or custom query. No coding, no API keys required.

🕒 Last updated: 2026-04-24 · 📊 25+ fields · 🔄 Runs on Apify cloud or locally · 📁 Export: JSON, CSV, Excel

The DOAJ Journal Metrics Scraper connects to the Directory of Open Access Journals to collect detailed metrics and publishing information for 22,000+ peer-reviewed journals. Each record includes 25+ structured fields covering journal titles, ISSN numbers, publisher details, article processing charges (APCs), licensing terms, editorial review types, and preservation services. Whether you need a quick sample of 10 journals or the entire DOAJ catalog, this tool handles it automatically.

Built for researchers evaluating journal options, academic librarians managing journal collections, publishers studying market trends, and funding agencies analyzing open access policies. The scraper uses DOAJ's own search API, supports advanced Lucene queries, and delivers clean structured data ready for spreadsheets and databases. No proxy required, no authentication needed, just fast access to the world's most complete open access journal directory.

Target Audience	Use Cases
Academic Researchers	Journal selection, APC comparison
University Librarians	Collection management, subscription analysis
Publishers	Market research, competitor analysis
Funding Agencies	Open access policy assessment
Data Scientists	Scholarly communication studies
Research Administrators	Compliance monitoring, reporting

---

📋 What the DOAJ Journal Metrics Scraper does

• 📝 Extracts journal titles and identifiers including official names, alternative titles, and DOAJ IDs for accurate tracking
• 🔢 Collects ISSN numbers for both print (PISSN) and electronic (EISSN) editions for cross-database identification
• 💰 Captures article processing charge (APC) details including fee amounts, currencies, and waiver availability
• ⚖️ Gathers licensing and copyright information including license types and whether authors retain copyright
• 📋 Pulls editorial process details with review types (single-blind, double-blind, open), plagiarism detection, and publication timelines
• 🌍 Collects publisher and geographic data including publisher names, headquarters countries, and journal languages

The scraper queries the DOAJ search API with your specified filters, handles pagination automatically, and processes results in parallel for speed. You can use simple keyword searches or advanced Lucene query syntax for precise filtering.

💡 Why it matters: DOAJ is the gold standard directory for open access journals. Manually browsing 22,000+ entries is impractical. This scraper gives you the full catalog (or any filtered subset) as structured, analysis-ready data in minutes.

---

🎬 Full Demo

🚧 Coming soon...

---

⚙️ Input

Field	Type	Required	Description
searchQuery	string	No	Lucene query string. Use * for all journals. Examples: bibjson.keywords:medicine, publisher:elsevier
maxItems	integer	No	Number of journals to retrieve. Free users: limited to 10. Paid users: up to 1,000,000.
subject	string	No	Library of Congress subject code (e.g., R for Medicine, Q for Science, H for Social Sciences).
language	string	No	ISO 639-1 language code (e.g., EN, FR, ES, DE, ZH).
country	string	No	ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code (e.g., US, GB, DE, IN, BR).
sort	string	No	Sort order: title:asc, title:desc, issn:asc, or issn:desc. Default: title:asc.
maxConcurrency	integer	No	Parallel request limit. Lower if rate-limited. Default: 5.

Example 1: Medical journals in English

{
  "searchQuery": "bibjson.keywords:medicine",
  "language": "EN",
  "maxItems": 100
}

Example 2: All journals from a specific country

{
  "searchQuery": "*",
  "country": "BR",
  "sort": "title:asc",
  "maxItems": 500
}

⚠️ Good to Know: Use * as the search query to get all journals. The subject, language, and country filters can be combined with any search query. Free users are automatically limited to 10 items per run.

---

📊 Output

🧾 Schema

Emoji	Field	Type	Description
📝	title	string	Official journal title
📝	alternativeTitle	string	Alternative journal name
🆔	doajId	string	Unique DOAJ identifier
🔢	pissn	string	Print ISSN
🔢	eissn	string	Electronic ISSN
🏢	publisher	string	Publisher name
🌍	publisherCountry	string	Publisher headquarters country
💰	hasApc	boolean	Whether the journal charges APCs
💰	apcAmount	number	APC fee amount
💱	apcCurrency	string	APC fee currency
🎫	hasWaiver	boolean	Whether APC waivers are available
⚖️	licenseType	string	License type (CC BY, CC BY-NC, etc.)
⚖️	authorRetainsCopyright	boolean	Whether authors keep copyright
📋	reviewType	string	Peer review type (single-blind, double-blind, open)
🔍	plagiarismDetection	boolean	Whether plagiarism screening is used
⏱️	publicationTimeWeeks	number	Average time from submission to publication
🗄️	preservationServices	array	Digital preservation programs
🌐	languages	array	Publication languages
📂	subjects	array	LCC subject classifications
🔗	journalUrl	string	Journal website URL
📅	addedToDoaj	string	Date added to DOAJ
📅	lastUpdated	string	Last update timestamp
📊	articleCount	number	Number of articles indexed
📅	scrapedAt	string	Data collection timestamp
❌	error	string	Error message if extraction failed

📦 Sample records

---

✨ Why choose this Actor

Feature	Details
📊 25+ structured fields	Titles, ISSNs, APCs, licensing, review types, and more
🌐 22,000+ journals covered	Access the full DOAJ catalog
💰 APC comparison	Fee amounts, currencies, and waiver availability
⚖️ License tracking	License types and author copyright retention
🔍 Advanced query syntax	Lucene queries for precise filtering
🌍 Multi-filter support	Subject, language, country, and sort options
⚡ Parallel processing	Concurrent requests for fast data collection

📈 Typical performance: Collects 300+ journal records per minute. The full DOAJ catalog of 22,000+ journals takes roughly 60-90 minutes.

---

📈 How it compares to alternatives

Feature	This Actor	Manual DOAJ Browsing	Generic Scrapers
25+ structured fields per journal	✅	❌	Partial
APC and waiver information	✅	✅ (one at a time)	❌
Advanced Lucene query filtering	✅	Partial	❌
Export to CSV/JSON/Excel	✅	❌	Partial
Full catalog download	✅	❌	❌
No coding required	✅	N/A	❌
Scheduled runs	✅	❌	Partial

Purpose-built for DOAJ data, with every journal field mapped and pagination handled automatically.

---

🚀 How to use

1. Create a free Apify account - Sign up here (includes free credits)
2. Open the DOAJ Journal Metrics Scraper - Navigate to the Actor page and click "Start"
3. Set your search - Enter a search query or use * for all journals, then apply subject, language, or country filters
4. Choose your limit - Set maxItems (free users: up to 10)
5. Run and download - Click "Start", wait for completion, then export as JSON, CSV, or Excel

⏱️ First results appear in under 10 seconds. A run of 100 journals completes in about 30 seconds.

---

💼 Business use cases

Academic Libraries Compare APC fees across journals in a field Audit open access compliance for funded research Build journal recommendation lists for faculty Track new journal additions to DOAJ	Publishers & Editors Benchmark APCs against competitor journals Analyze peer review practices by discipline Study publication timelines across markets Identify gaps in journal coverage by subject
Research Administration Monitor open access policy compliance Generate reports on institutional publishing patterns Evaluate preservation service coverage Track license type adoption trends	Data Science & Bibliometrics Build datasets for scholarly communication studies Analyze geographic distribution of open access Create journal classification models Study the relationship between APCs and review quality

---

🌟 Beyond business use cases

Data like this powers more than commercial workflows. The same structured records support research, education, civic projects, and personal initiatives.

🎓 Research and academia Empirical datasets for papers, thesis work, and coursework Longitudinal studies tracking changes across snapshots Reproducible research with cited, versioned data pulls Classroom exercises on data analysis and ethical scraping	🎨 Personal and creative Side projects, portfolio demos, and indie app launches Data visualizations, dashboards, and infographics Content research for bloggers, YouTubers, and podcasters Hobbyist collections and personal trackers
🤝 Non-profit and civic Transparency reporting and accountability projects Advocacy campaigns backed by public-interest data Community-run databases for local issues Investigative journalism on public records	🧪 Experimentation Prototype AI and machine-learning pipelines with real data Validate product-market hypotheses before engineering spend Train small domain-specific models on niche corpora Test dashboard concepts with live input

---

🔌 Automating DOAJ Journal Metrics Scraper

Node.js

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';
const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'YOUR_API_TOKEN' });
const run = await client.actor("parseforge/doaj-scraper").call({
  searchQuery: "*",
  subject: "R",
  maxItems: 200
});
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items);

Python

from apify_client import ApifyClient
client = ApifyClient("YOUR_API_TOKEN")
run = client.actor("parseforge/doaj-scraper").call(run_input={
    "searchQuery": "*",
    "subject": "R",
    "maxItems": 200
})
items = list(client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items())
print(items)

• 📖 Apify API Reference
• 🐍 Python API Client docs
• 🟢 Node.js API Client docs

Schedules: Set up monthly runs with Apify Schedules to track new journals added to DOAJ, monitor APC changes, and maintain an up-to-date journal directory.

🤖 Ask an AI assistant about this scraper

Open a ready-to-send prompt about this ParseForge actor in the AI of your choice:

• 💬 ChatGPT
• 🧠 Claude
• 🔍 Perplexity
• 🅒 Copilot

---

---

❓ Frequently Asked Questions

---

🔌 Integrate with any app

• 🔗 Make (Integromat) - Connect DOAJ data to 1,000+ apps with visual workflows
• 🔗 Zapier - Trigger notifications when new journals match your criteria
• 🔗 Slack - Send alerts to your team when new open access journals appear
• 🔗 Airbyte - Sync journal data to your data warehouse or database
• 🔗 GitHub - Automate journal directory updates with GitHub Actions
• 🔗 Google Drive - Export journal listings to Google Sheets

---

🔗 Recommended Actors

Actor	Description
📚 PubMed Citation Scraper	Extract citation data and metadata from PubMed biomedical literature
🔬 OpenAlex Scraper	Query 250M+ scholarly records from the OpenAlex open catalog
📖 Open Library Scraper	Extract book metadata and availability from Open Library
🧬 Crossref Scraper	Collect DOI metadata and citation information from Crossref
📄 Unpaywall Scraper	Find free legal copies of research articles via Unpaywall

💡 Pro Tip: Combine the DOAJ Scraper with the Crossref Scraper to match journal-level metadata with article-level citation data for full bibliometric analysis.

---

🆘 Need Help? Open our contact form and we will get back to you within 24 hours. For bug reports, feature requests, or integration help, we are here to assist.

---

Disclaimer: This Actor is provided as-is, without warranty. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). Use it responsibly and in compliance with applicable terms of service. The authors are not responsible for how the collected data is used. Always verify data accuracy for critical applications.